Schwarz on Best/Worst Draft Picks
Jeff · June 3, 2005 at 11:39 am · Filed Under Mariners
There’s a two-edged sword to writing a group blog in tandem with bright people. On the one hand, you’re always learning, and you want to rise to the occasion of others’ good posts with solid efforts of your own. But then you see a bunch of great stuff you don’t want to knock off the front page.
So I’ll save my longer material for next week and offer instead this quick hit. In advance of the draft next week, check out the always reliable Alan Schwarz’ rundown of the best and worst high draft picks. The Mariners make the list in a couple of places, with A-Rod deservedly at No. 1, and with an anecdote about Tito Nanni that you may find amusing.
Comments
8 Responses to “Schwarz on Best/Worst Draft Picks”
Thanks for the pointer.
Put together one of these with M’s only and you’ll reach the star-status of the others on this blog.
Just kidding … er … nevermind.
I remember reading that the M’s had actually worked out a contract to buy Gibson away from MSU before turning around and taking Nanni; I hadn’t known that Jerry Krause was the scout pushing Gibson, though. That’s really funny.
Jeff,
You are a star in this Mariner blogosphere. Keep up the great work.
This almost makes you miss the Woody Woodward era. For all the bad pub he got as a bad trader, he did a heck of a job with the draft.
Griffey, Rodriguez, Varitek, Cruz Jr.
Ah, the days when the Mariners had positional prospects.
Actually, Roger Jongewaard did (which included out-arguing Woody on both our big #1 hits); it was, as DMZ et al. have pointed out more than once, the M’s decision to give the draft to Frank Mattox that was the beginning of all our woes . . .
The funny part is that Jongewaard plays the role of scouting nemesis to Billy Beane’s theories on drafting in Moneyball=…though when you look at it, there’s an AWFULLY impressive record of high draft picks Jongewaard didn’t wash out on in the 1980’s and 1990’s:
Gooden
Strawberry
Griffey
A-Rod
Tino Martinez
Cruz Jr.
That kind of record is why “stats vs. scouting” is definitely an oversimplification of truth.
How tough was it for Roger Jongward to draft Strawberry, Griffey and A-Rod? Does anyone agree that Jongward ability was overrated to some degree. Anyway, maybe someone could write a piece on the M’s botched drafts over the last, say, five years. Let’s see…we have Sam Hays (4th 2000), Jeff Flaig (2nd 2003), Michael Garciaparra (Sup. 1st 2001), Lazaro Abreu (Sup. 3rd 2001), Tim Merritt (3rd 2001), Randy Frye (4th 2002)…as well as no signed first rounder since 1999. Thank goodness for Bob Fontaine.
What I’d really like to see is a comparison of career pre-draft numbers (high school & or college), if they exist, to MLB career numbers or A-ball numbers if they never made it to the bigs. Then look to see who were the luckiest and unlukiest teams in drafting success.